Amended SAF Suit Challenges California Gun Microstamping Law

BELLEVUE, Wash., June 11, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Attorneys for the Second Amendment Foundation and Calguns Foundation have filed an amended complaint in the on-going Pena case, challenging California's handgun roster law to clarify that the challenge extends to the state's newly-activated microstamping regulation.

The plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment will be argued by the court's deadline in November.

The case was originally filed in 2009 as a challenge to California's regulation that arbitrarily bans handguns based on a roster of "acceptable" handgun models approved by the state. The new motion addresses microstamping, which has made it even harder to legally purchase a handgun in that state.

"When the case was originally filed," SAF Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb recalled, "the state's microstamping requirement was not active and was not part of the lawsuit. However, because of substantial delays involving the Ninth Circuit's protracted Nordyke litigation, microstamping is now a significant issue. We've had to amend our complaint to address this new effort by California legislators to limit the types of handguns one can legally purchase."

Gene Hoffman, chairman of the Calguns Foundation, added, "California's attempt to limit the availability of handguns to her citizens is so broad that it makes it impossible to purchase the revolver that the U.S. Supreme Court has specifically ruled had to be registered to Dick Heller, whose case struck down the District of Columbia's handgun ban and affirmed that the Second Amendment protects an individual civil right.

"The state cannot dictate that some common arms can't be bought just as they can't dictate which versions of religious texts are acceptable," Hoffman added. "Now that the state requires microstamping, it's unlikely any new make or model of pistol will be added - making it even clearer that this is an incremental ban on firearms."

"Amending our case to address the California legislature's insidious erosion of firearms rights was a necessary step," Gottlieb concluded. "It is clear the intent of anti-gun lawmakers is not to regulate firearms but to ban them via increasingly restrictive legislation. This scheme cannot go without challenge, and our existing case is the best and quickest way to accomplish that."

The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation's oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.